


you, clouds, rain.

by auvelli



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Maybe - Freeform, Non-Linear Narrative, Post-Time Skip, author does NOT project onto sakusa, but as they say distance makes the heart grow fonder, i really dont even know how to tag for this, some rlly brief implied sexy times sorry, they are deep in love and dont know how to feel about it, they take a break
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:34:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24959218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auvelli/pseuds/auvelli
Summary: Because it was raining,I thought of you.(aka, the ways in which Atsumu and Sakusa push and pull and love.)
Relationships: Miya Atsumu/Sakusa Kiyoomi
Comments: 44
Kudos: 220





	you, clouds, rain.

**Author's Note:**

> hello! this is technically my first take on a non linear narrative that wasn't really supposed to be longer than like 1.5k but oh well. I am once again detoxing from longer projects, go ahead, sue me. maybe don't. but the sakutatsu brainworms that live rent free in my mind were hungry and I was forced to feed them. eat up kiddos. 
> 
> title is from [this](https://open.spotify.com/track/0iYZsa6xdTvKrwFufLWafC) lovely song by heize. and lyrics at beginning are from [this](https://open.spotify.com/track/5Yb82JrDj09gQHQtjWgYYo) lovely song from mitski. 
> 
> please enjoy.

_“I hear my heart breaking tonight, do you hear it, too?_

_It’s like a summer shower, with every drop of rain singing:_

_‘I love you,_

_I love you,_

_I love you.’”_

**  
  
  
**

-

**  
  
  
  
**

It’s a coalescence of many things. 

Distantly, Atsumu recalls his studies of the World Wars in high school. 

There was never a single cause. It wasn’t simply the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand that had sent the bulk of Europe and those caught in the geopolitical fishnet into trenches of ruin - though it may have tipped the scale. Considering other aspects, complicated webs of alliances, some fresh other’s ingrained into years of past conflicts. Considering the calamity of imperialism, and the fear of being left behind. 

There is no one reason for why Atsumu is on a train to his hometown, Hyogo, away from Tokyo, away from the apartment on the 4th floor, away from _Kiyoomi._ All he knows is that they’ve reached a peak he didn’t know they were climbing to. The Archduke is dead. They’ve been caught in the net. 

Atsumu assesses the trenches of ruin. 

A stalemate. He’s running into No Man’s Land.

Only praying that Kiyoomi will meet him on the other side. 

**  
  
  
  
**

-

**  
  
  
  
  
**

Sakusa Kiyoomi has never known home. 

His first accommodation: a place his mother and father had created together. One she could not bear to maintain after his passing, one that sits blurry in the archives of his mind. The second, a shabby studio in the outskirts of the city. Much too cramped for the family of 4 - he, his mother, and two siblings. However, adequate space sat comfortably at the bottom of their collective priorities, only notably high on Kiyoomi’s developing ones. He associates it with stale air and high tensions, but the unmistakable presence of a family bond. A break in the ropes, one job loss and the unfortunate reality that there just isn’t enough funds. One sibling goes to the grandparents, the other an uncle, and Kiyoomi an aunt. 

This was by far his longest lasting accommodation and one that arguably came the closest to the distant shore of _‘home’_. Where he became close with his cousin Komori, mocking the lost bonds of his siblings. Where he established himself as best he could in the space provided, at least, as best he could for a space that was not his. 

Kiyoomi lived on borrowed space. This is not a home. Kiyoomi is a guest. 

A guest to his university’s dorm. A guest to the MSBY standard complex. 

Until Miya Atsumu. Until serendipitous discoveries and stumbling into an unknown world with another hand his. 

Until late night research and careful deliberation. Until _‘Kitchen’s a bit small, yea?’_ and ‘ _We can put yer succulents on this window’_ and ‘ _Ya think this is the one, Omi?’_

Then it’s two names on a lease, and a couple of silver keys. A space - their’s and no one else’s, save for their landlord’s looming presence. 

He may not be alone. It might be shared, but-

“This is it. Home sweet home.” 

Yes, Kiyoomi thinks. _This is home._

**  
  
  
  
**

-

**  
  
  
  
**

“Omi, whaddya doin’?”

“Redecorating our room.”

“Fun, but, why?”

“Well, because,” a breath, “Because I can. It’s our’s.”

**  
  
  
**

-

**  
  
  
  
**

Building a home on the foundation of _ours_ is so much harder than on a foundation of _mine._

Because what happens when the other party is gone?

Is it, _can_ it, still be the same home?

Kiyoomi thinks of his mother. When his father passed, could the home ever exist as it was? Was it forever fundamentally changed?

You could rebuild that space, hypothetically. Paint over its history, reshape it to your own creation. 

But, as Kiyoomi looks to marble kitchen tile and envisions early morning dances to hummed tunes, or to the beige couch and feels the set of arms around his shoulders and the sunset against the skin, or even to the bathroom where he stood hip to hip perfecting gentle night rituals with-

No.

Kiyoomi does not want to rebuild this space. He doesn’t have to, _shouldn’t_ have to, anyways. But he couldn’t.

It will always be a home of theirs. A home of _ours._

**  
  
  
  
**

-

**  
  
  
**

Atsumu’s run away from home a few times. 

One time, memorably, at age eight, in a fit of regular anger and irritance from yet another quarrel with his brother. 

“I wish I was the only one!” Osamu had shouted with his fists balled at his sides - not the first, nor last time he would say these words in their time growing up together. 

Atsumu, on the peaks of his irate state, shoved as much as he could manage into a too-big duffle bag, and snuck out the back door with only the setting sun to bear witness to his naive decamp.

For there was only one other location he could go - their grandmother’s, who lived a short half an hour walk away. 

He had peered up to her with dewy-eyes, shoulder’s sore from the weight. He never believed in the ‘wise elderly’, or whatever else they feed you to get ya to respect the old folks, but, if Atsumu now could see the look of knowing she had given him upon opening a creaky white door, he would think she’d lived a 100 lifetimes, learning the secrets to human nature in each one. 

“Oh, ‘Tsumu,” she had said feebly, smiling softly, “He just wants to be his own person, just as you do.”

Atsumu had not known what these words meant at the time, instead he ignorantly enjoyed the snickerdoodles that laid on a porcelain plate upon her dining room table. 

“Life will always serve to contradict itself. Why would it make you identical if it wants you to be different? Who knows. But the person you’ll come out to be will be uniquely you, no matter what.” 

She had called his parents to come pick him up shortly after that. Though the meaning never clicked, the words resonated somewhere in his chest as he forced apologies through gritted teeth. 

**  
  
  
  
**

-

**  
  
  
  
**

Atsumu stands in the doorway - _their_ doorway. MSBY duffel bag slung upon his shoulders, mask slid over his features. (He’s grateful for this, now. Maybe it serves to protect the tensing of his jaw, the gritting of his teeth.) 

“Kiyoomi.”

It’s too long. Too bitter. 

There’s no response, just deep eyes, crossed arms, and cogitation. 

“Promise me yer not runnin’ away.” 

An exhale. It paints the abstract picture of a laugh, but it holds none of a laugh’s foundations. 

“Only if you’re not.”

He would laugh too, if he could. 

Atsumu lets the door shut without another word. 

**  
  
  
  
**

-

**  
  
  
  
**

“Y’know, Picasso’s lucky he’s in the ground, I’d have given him a run for his money!” 

Atsumu grins brightly at his drying… masterpiece(?) in his eyes, anyways. 

Two lanky arms snake around his waist, familiar and homely in their own right. He can’t help but lean back into them as a chin hooks itself onto his shoulder. 

“It’s beautiful, love.”

A warmth blooms itself onto the rise of his cheeks, unsuspecting and pure. 

“Y’think?”

“Mhm.”

Two sets of eyes scan a 30” by 40” canvas, filled to the edges with sunset shades, clouds, and the shadows of curvy palm trees. 

“Omi.”

“Yes?”

Atsumu slides his hand over the other’s forearms, brushing daintily over the wrists to prod his fingers between Kiyoomi’s longer, thinner ones. 

“Take me t’California one of these days, will ya?”

A chuckle, brief but impactful. The vibrations against the plains of his back bloom a field of sunflowers in their wake.

“Sure, if you want.” 

**  
  
  
  
  
**

-

**  
  
  
  
  
**

Cross-legged, sitting upon the otherwise empty queen size bed, Kiyoomi ponders. 

A quick second of facial recognition and an excursion to his messages, he ponders further. 

_‘Tsumu_ ♡’

It would be so easy.

One text to eat his words and the space that he created, but for some reason it feels wrong. They haven’t spoken to each other, after all. How long has it been, two weeks?

He ponders again. _I’m ready. I’m sorry. Thank you for letting me breath._ \- they’re all viable options. 

A glint to his right catches his eye. Kiyoomi studies those vibrant shades, the dark palm trees that sway only in his mind. He remembers the hands that painted them. He misses those hands. 

**  
  
**

_Atsumu,_

_Would you let me take you to California, still?_

Kiyoomi smiles weakly at the thought. 

**  
  
  
  
**

-

**  
  
  
  
  
**

“Gee, look what the cat dragged in.”

“Shuddup, ‘Samu.”

Atsumu pushes through the doorway and drops his duffle bag next to the coffee colored leather couch before flopping onto it with as much grace and dramaticism as a fainting princess. 

“Where’s Sunarin?”

“He won’t be back ‘til next week.” 

“Hm.”

“Whadda ‘bout Sak-”

“Don’t.”

Osamu sits on a matching recliner that lies across the ravine of a glass coffee table. 

“What happened, ‘Tsumu.”

“Nothin’.” 

Suddenly, he’s very invested in the ceiling and its weird speckled textures. Osamu sighs. 

“Ya want a beer?” 

Silence, then a tentative exhale. 

“Yea, sure.” 

**  
  
  
  
**

-

**  
  
  
  
**

Before the Archduke, there was doubt. 

“What d’ya wanna do for our anniversary, Omi?”

“I say the same thing every year.”

There’s a chuckle from underneath Kiyoomi. They’re sprawled out on opposite ends, legs tangled and crossed somewhere in the middle of the beige expanse of the couch. 

“Well, I’ll keep askin’ anyways. Maybe you’ll say somethin’ different one of these days.”

Implications. 

Why does this hypothetical force run cold in his veins? 

Why does _‘one of these days’_ sit foreign and unwanted in his heart? 

“‘Tsumu, where are we going?” Kiyoomi says one day, roughly five drinks into their typical post-win celebration.

“T’the balcony, I thought.”

“No I mean,” he sighs. “Us. Like, our, our-”

“Future?” 

Future. That’s the word. 

“Yes.”

Atsumu leads them through the glass sliding door, re-sitting themselves at their metal outdoor table. He doesn’t speak until his beer is opened and two sips are gone. 

“I dunno, Omi.” 

“I don’t know either. “

“Do ya wanna know?”

“It would make me feel better.” 

“Well,” Atsumu takes another sip before reaching out a hand, a hand which Kiyoomi takes in his, familiar and warm. “As long as it’s ours, I don’t really care. Do you?”

The words get caught somewhere in his throat, taken into the grasp of bloodied claws, and pulled back into a secret compartment in Kiyoomi’s heart, locked there. 

He washes the sting away with a generous swig. 

**  
  
  
  
**

-

**  
  
  
  
**

“Everything in life is temporary, Kiyoomi.” 

The subdued words of his mother seemed minimally impaired, even through the phone. 

This had been the only time he had expressed longing for the past to her, mistakenly, at age ten. 

_“I miss you, I miss brother and sister. Why can’t we live together again?”_ \- he had said. 

“Everything will come to an end. Careers, happiness, homes, love. It’s hard, but it’s true. You can’t hold onto forever.” 

**  
  
  
  
**

-

**  
  
  
  
**

_“Omi,”_ Atsumu slurred into his chest that night. 

_“I want t’be yer forever.”_

Kiyoomi could only feign sleep as silent tears fell from his eyes. 

**  
  
  
  
**

-

**  
  
  
  
**

Before the Archduke, there were misunderstandings. 

“Omi, what’s wrong.” 

It’s less a question, more a command. More an obligation. 

“Nothing is wrong.”

“Nothin’ my ass.” 

His raised voice echoes off the metal of the lockers, the room otherwise empty, cleared out fairly quickly after an intense practice. 

“Yer not lookin’ me in the eye, flinchin’ away from me again like we just met or somethin’.” 

Kiyoomi looks into the locker, dimly, he sees his reflection. Distorted and tinted green. 

“Can ya just talk t’me?” 

Softer, then. More pleading than anything. 

If there are words, once again, they get caught in his throat. Elaborate traps to catch anything timorous, anything unsure. Kiyoomi’s thought he’s disarmed these traps, and yet they persist, one with his trachea. 

Atsumu laughs, empty and sad. 

“Here I go again, bending backwards for yer ass.” 

Kiyoomi’s eye snap away from the locker. 

“What do you mean?”

_“What do you mean?’_ Omi I’m sayin ya’ve had me twistin’ and turnin’ around all yer bullshit for the last three years and-”

“Do _not_ ,” Kiyoomi rises from the bench, “Do _not_ act like you’re the only one who’s been trying.” 

“Well, sometimes it feels like I am!” Atsumu spits. “When ya can’t even tell me what’s goin’ on in that damn head of yers!”

Kiyoomi’s breaths feel ragged and heavy as his chest flares up in anger. Tentatively, he steps closer. 

“Everything I do, yer on my fuckin’ mind. I can’t sit on trains the same, can’t help the stupid hand sanitizer and disinfectin’ my phone everyday and wipin’ down shoppin’ carts and rose water sheet masks on the weekends but then I wonder where am I in yer day? Are we even on the same fuckin’ page?” 

There’s a sense of radioactivity in their eye contact before he surges forward to take Atsumu into a kiss, fervent and desperate. Kiyoomi wills his lips to say the words he can’t. The words caught in those elaborate traps. 

_I love you so much sometimes that I can’t think straight and it makes me afraid. My biggest fear is losing you. I’m sorry that I can’t prove that I’ve changed for you, too. I’m sorry I was conditioned away from forevers. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry-_

“Omi.” 

Kiyoomi’s head turns to the other side of the bed. They’re both still bare chested and breathing a little harsher. Distantly, he registers stinging lines upon his back. 

“That was a clever distraction, but-”

“I know,” He interrupts. 

“Yea?”

A heavy exhale. “I’m sorry.”

Atsumu gets up from the bed. Kiyoomi listens idly as the shower starts to run, staring at the speckled patterns on the ceiling above.

**  
  
  
  
**

-

**  
  
  
  
**

Their first _I love you’s_ were under the pouring rain. 

Atsumu had gone to Hyogo to be with his father who had been hospitalized, missed three practices, missed Kiyoomi. 

_Missed Kiyoomi._

Missed his stupid scowl, and sarcasm, and flat tones and snide comments. The realization washes over him at the first pang of want, the first pang of loneliness. 

Sitting by a bed of pristine white sheets and a weakened figure, Atsumu wished Kiyoomi was by his side. Despite everything, despite his stubborn pride and even more stubborn heart, he wanted the other by his side. 

Kiyoomi picks him up from the train back to Tokyo two days later. 

His tall figure, turtleneck and overcoat, glasses loose on the bridge of his nose, a clear umbrella. His deep curls and even deeper eyes. 

This melancholy Sunday, singing a solemn song of want with each drop of rain. 

“Sakusa Kiyoomi.”

He starts firmly, emotions blooming like the flowers of spring in his chest. A fountain bursting of affection. 

“I love you, dammit.”

Kiyoomi raises a brow, a signal of perplexion. (A mask covering the gentle upturn of his lips.)

“Dammit?”

“Yes, dammit. I think yer a stupid bastard and I’m in love with you.”

“Well,” Kiyoomi says softly, “I think you’re a stubborn asshole. And I love you, too.” 

**  
  
  
  
  
**

-

**  
  
  
  
  
**

Kiyoomi peers through the living room window, and is greeted with desolate clouds and the distant pouring of rain. 

He brews coffee, something he hasn’t done since Atsumu left, merely for the fact that the other serves as their personal barista and was always the more avid coffee drinker of the two, anyways. 

When he settles onto the couch, the brew steaming in a baby blue mug within his palms, he opts to listen to the downpour. If it weren’t completely irrational, he would say that they’re trying to tell him something. Each drop hiding a secret message in its molecular make-up. 

He brings the mug up to his lips, letting out a careful stream of air to disperse the heat upon the surface. Miraculously, upon a dainty sip, it tastes like nothing. 

His coffee, somehow, tastes like nothing. 

Maybe it’s time to get out, anyways. 

**  
  
  
**

-

**  
  
  
**

_[You]_

_Komori, are you free today?_

**  
  
**

-

**  
  
  
  
  
**

Then, there is the Archduke.

A loss, a heavy one, against the Adlers. The beginning of another off season, what should be a time of rest and recuperation. 

“Atsumu,” Kiyoomi starts. They’ve just gotten back to the apartment, chins stubbornly still high but spirits understandably low.

“I think... “ The traps are threatening his words again, he wills them still. “I think we need space.” 

“Whaddya mean?”

“A break.” 

Atsumu winces. 

“Omi is this about what I said the other week? I know I never apologized but I didn’t really mean what I-”

“It doesn’t matter if you meant it or not, really.”

“Why?” 

“You said it because you had thought it before. Am I wrong?” 

It’s quiet. Kiyoomi leans against the wall, hands stuffed into his pockets. Atsumu stands idly, but on edge by the couch. 

“I just think we need some time apart.” 

Atsumu, hesitantly, nods. Nods ever so slowly, as if the action causes him physical pain. 

“I should,” he starts softly with a shaky exhale, “Pay a visit to my dumb brother, anyways. I can take the train out tomorrow mornin’.” 

Kiyoomi nods. Smooth and calculated. 

“Okay.” 

“I’m sorry, Omi.”

It’s quiet. 

Later, Kiyoomi can only feign sleep as he listens to Atsumu pack a duffel bag full of clothes. 

**  
  
  
  
**

-

**  
  
  
  
**

Atsumu’s eyes peel open in time with a distant clap of thunder. He registers the rain beating upon the window of Osamu’s guest room, his home away from home for the past three weeks. 

He treks lazily into the kitchen, eyeing _3:27_ off of the oven clock as he fills a tall glass of ice water. 

“The fuck are ya up for?” Osamu asks, appearing suddenly in the opening to the hall, voice groggy with sleep. 

Atsumu shrugs. “Dunno. Weather woke me up, I think.” 

Osamu grumbles under his breath, shuffling over to the cupboard. After a second, he pulls out a package of Oreos, the familiar crinkling of the thin plastic ringing out. He grabs two, then offers it to Atsumu. 

“Omi always says sweets this late’ll kill my teeth.” 

Maybe it’s a trick of the moonlight, but it looks as though Osamu rolls his eyes. 

“Well _‘Omi’_ ain’t here, is he?” 

Atsumu sighs, because yea, Omi isn’t here. 

Kiyoomi just- isn’t here. 

He grabs one. 

They settle onto Osamu’s couch. Somehow, the cookies have followed, sitting upon the coffee table and, somehow, Atsumu is on his third. 

Guilt sits in his chest. It plants itself somewhere comfortably in his ribs. 

_Kiyoomi isn’t here_ \- what a horrid thought. 

And sure, he isn’t here now, but, he’ll be back soon, right? He has to, off season can only be so long. Soon there will be practices, soon there will be volleyball, soon there will be Kiyoomi. 

But what if there isn’t?

What if he decides that they should break it off for good? 

Atsumu can picture the conversation, how the space gave him clarity, how he’s thought about their relationship-

“‘Samu.”

He doesn’t mean it, but his voice comes out wet and warbly. It’s so off putting Osamu’s head turns faster than he means it to. 

And then he watches. 

Watches as moonlit trails of tears travel down his brother’s cheeks, a sniffle sounding out into the silence. 

“I don’t think I know how to live without him anymore.” 

**  
  
  
  
  
**

-

**  
  
  
  
  
**

“You don’t, _what?_ ”

Komori’s steaming coffee is halfway to his lips, brows raised and doing a mental double take of Kiyoomi’s words. 

“I said, I don’t think I know how to live without him anymore.” 

Kiyoomi watches the raindrops burst upon the ground through the window of the coffeeshop, one after another, unrelenting. 

“Huh,” Komori marvels, completing his sip. “Then don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

A soft chuckle ripples out over the table.

“Don’t live without him.”

Kiyoomi considers this. 

“How?”

“Well,” he hums, “Most people get married. But, you don’t have to really.”

“But there’s no guarantee that we’ll want each other forever.” _That he’ll want me forever._

“No, there isn't.” Komori says, plain and with a gentle smile on his face. “It’s a gamble, really. But that’s just love. If it’s truly unconditional, nothing’ll stop it.”

_You can’t hold on to forever._

He wrote this down in his subconscious _‘Rules of Life’,_ as though it was final, the set in stone truth. 

Not once, had he ever thought to find out for himself. 

**  
  
  
  
**

-

**  
  
  
  
**

_[you]_

_Atsumu_

_[you]_

_I’m ready, if you are._

**  
  
  
  
**

-

**  
  
  
  
**

“Honey, I’m home!” Atsumu calls out, stepping through the doorway. 

“Honey, I’m right behind you,” Kiyoomi mocks, tone flat. Atsumu snorts. 

“I’m kiddin’ Omi. I’ve just always wanted to say that.” 

“You’ve been picturing me as some kind of housewife, then?” 

Atsumu laughs, turning to take Kiyoomi’s hands into his own. “Never. If anything, I’d be yers. I’ll do yer cookin’, yer cleanin-”

“I had to teach you how to use our oven yesterday.” 

“Hey, it’s fancier than my old one, alright?” 

“Sure.” 

Atsumu grins. Bold and bright. Kiyoomi smiles. Soft but unmistakably fond. 

“This still doesn’t feel real,” he says, almost a whisper. 

Kiyoomi tilts his head in the slightest. “What, living together?”

“Yea.”

“Why?”

“Dunno,” Atsumu shrugs. “Think it’s just cuz I’m so in love with ya.” 

“That’s disgusting.”

“Bastard.”

“Asshole.”

Kiyoomi’s heart is warm. So warmed, he has to lean forward to capture Atsumu’s lips, determined to kiss him silly right in their living room. 

And he wills his lips, with all his might, to say that: _Atsumu,_

_I am so in love with you, too._

**  
  
  
  
  
**

-

**  
  
  
  
  
  
**

_[Tsumu ♡]_

_i always have been, ya big dummy_

_[Tsumu ♡]_

_i’ll take the 10 am tomorrow._

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! 
> 
> i'd love to hear any thoughts/concerns/opinions you have :) all comments/kudos are very highly appreciated in this household. 
> 
> stay golden lovelies, till next time. 
> 
> (also, feel free to yell at me on [twitter.](https://twitter.com/new_lei01) no really, I mean it. let's be friends)


End file.
